Certain Shades of Limelight: Some days I just really feel like reblogging my rant about Kingdom...

Certain Shades of Limelight: Some days I just really feel like reblogging my rant about Kingdom...:

therearecertainshadesoflimelight:

Some days I just really feel like reblogging my rant about Kingdom Come all over again.

I undersand why the book is appealing to people. And the art is stunning.

But if you are a female comics fan who claims to care and be in-tune to how narratives make women feel about themselves and how much…

This seems to be aimed at me, a little bit. In which case, I agree, I might even go a little bit further, in that I think that Wonder Woman is also treated very shabbily in that book.

The Lois thing is bad, but so many of the heroes have tragic backstory in that book that it's hard to single one out. Most of the characters were hit by some gruesome tragedy, which was certainly the style of the day, and a big part of what led to Women In Refrigerators.  It's been years since I read KC, my opinions might have changed. But I found a lot to admire in both the art and the narrative. Still, yes, absolutely, the female characters are not given the respect or dignity of the rest of the cast. It's extremely noticeable.

I was email friends with Mark Waid at the time, had no aspirations of being a pro, was just a fan. And the book was really very exciting to my young fangirl mind. I didn't know about fanfiction, but I made up little backstories for all the characters. I really enjoyed it.

But even then, man, the stuff with Wonder Woman and Lois felt like the book's anchor (and I don't mean that in a good way). It just felt particularly noticeable in what was otherwise something of a masterpiece.  I was pissed about the Lois thing, but Wonder Woman's big moment at the end, where she is essentially the bad guy, and gets her head straightened around by that moral compass, BATMAN, of all people, that really bothered me, and bothers me still.

I remember I talked to Mark about it back then, the last issue hadn't been out for very long, and I asked, what is this, what were you thinking?  And he said that it was true, it was a false moment.  He just said that of all the DC characters, Wonder Woman was the one he had the toughest time understanding. It was that portrayal of Wonder Woman that I really loathe, where she's this sort of icy queen who doesn't know her own heart or identity and has to be scolded and told right from wrong by Superman or Batmant, urgh. Mark might read it differently, but my memory is that he is unhappy with that whole portrayal, as well.

I can love a book with a characterization that I hate in it, it's happened several times. And to his credit, Mark did get that he messed that up, and admitted it right away. Kingdom Come isn't his favorite of his works. And he has written some of my favorite comics women since then; Linda Park will always be one of my most beloved characters. He's still absolutely one of my favorite writers in comics.

Maybe I should read it again and see if I'm remembering it through rose colored glasses. I recently went back and read some comics stuff I loved when I was younger and it was just a horrid slog to get through.